HakiPensheni

Most people lack social security, but detest present schemes

By Jack Mikaili

18th December 2011

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NSSF Director General Ramadhani Dau

Extension of social security coverage is the greatest challenge for social security, since about 80 to 90 percent of the African population lives in a state of perpetual insecurity.

A new report published by the International Social Security Association (ISSA) entitled ‘Africa: A new balance for social security,’ asserts that extending social security coverage remains Africa’s major social policy challenge. “Africa is facing multiple external challenges, including widespread informal employment, inadequate social infrastructure, and a high burden of infectious and chronic disease,” the report says.

ISSA president Errol Frank Stoove noted similarly that nearly 50 percent of the African population is below 20 years old and not covered by any social security scheme.

There is, however, significant progress in increasing coverage to some of Africa’s most vulnerable population groups, through innovative cash transfers and health care programmes.

The ISSA report which analyses important recent developments and trends in social security across the continent highlights good practices on cash transfers and health care.

The report, presented at the Regional Social Security Forum for Africa in Arusha on Monday, documents successful projects in relation to extended coverage, including for previously unprotected workers, the elderly and vulnerable families. “New evidence confirms significant and rapid progress in extending health care social benefits coverage in a number of countries in Africa,” said Hans-Horst Konkolewsky, the ISSA secretary-general.

“A reinvigorated policy focus on the extension of coverage, combined with improved governance and administration, and a greater emphasis on forward-looking and earlier interventions, means that African social security institutions are contributing to social cohesion and economic development in new ways,” he pointed out.

A recent study by the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) indicates that 70 per cent of Tanzanians are not willing to join social security schemes largely because traditional benefits do not address their immediate needs.

NSSF Director General Ramadhani Dau said in a presentation of the study that when people were questioned on whether they would wish to join a social security scheme, 70 per cent said they would like to do so if NSSF introduced innovative benefits.

The majority of respondents did not consider NSSF or any other social security fund to be of any immediate assistance, while some of the people interviewed during the survey said their immediate concerns were how to pay fees for their children in school and not life after retirement.

"Most of them look at these schemes as institutions which do not provide immediate benefits," he said, elaborating that this thinking cuts across all the social security schemes in the country because many people were concerned by how to acquire hard cash when it is needed for urgencies.

SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY